Comments on: The Politics of Fearhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/the-politics-of-fear/
a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justiceSat, 27 Sep 2014 17:28:19 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3By: maryhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/the-politics-of-fear/#comment-77447
Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:37:35 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=25661#comment-77447There is increasing evidence of fascist state control in Britain.

Look at these photos and comments on the student protests in London yesterday. Refusing to be ‘kettled’ as they were last week, the students adopted a new strategy of outrunning the police although in the end they were overpowered.

These protests are taking place all over the country but it seems that the Metropolitan Police in particular adopt these heavy tactics.

london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/6258

london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/6259

When you attend a protest in London, as I have done during Cast Lead, on the day of the flotilla attack and on other occasions, you see the ranks of police, the riot force (Territorial Support Group) with their specialized uniforms and equipment, the barking dogs, the police mounted on horses and ;arge number of reserves brought in from surrounding forces who wait in vans that are lined up in side streets. All very intimidating. and grim.

It emerged during the inquest on Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian electrician who was shot dead by the police on an underground train, that the Met go to Israel for training. Enough said.

The Tea Bagger movement can be seen in the context of Anthony Wallace’s revitalization movement. It represents a form of political fundamentalism that can be very dangerous. Jurgen Habermas has been quick to assure us that the present hysteria in Germany over Muslims is not as bad as it seems. I wonder. Jean La Pen’s daughted has distinguished her movement from the Tea Baggers, saying she has no klansmen.

In the United States, we have had three decades of right-wing populism fueling the GOP. Experts thought that populism cannot run very long, just a few years.

I am not sure if political fundamentalism is different from right wing populism or an acute manifestation of the disease, which can lead to what Daniel Goldhagen called eliminationism in reference to Nazi Germany.

From time to time, Republicans have borrowed themes and rhetoric from the right wing fundamentalists–Constitutionalist Partt, militias, White Identity, Alaska Independence Party, etc.

Reagan began it using states rights tropes and harping on the anti-government theme.

The first signs of political fundamentalism turned up at the 2008 Palin appearances, which sometimes resembled Klan rallies. Then there were people carrying arms to intimidate people at Democrat rallies. After that, we had all the disruptions at the town meetings on health care.

2008-2009 were what Gusfield called a crisis of havoc in which all meanings seemed to dissolve and people also felt great economic insecurity. People who are adverse to ambiguity react by resorting to political fundamentalism, embracing what they think are the verities of being true Americans or true Germans. In this case, there was Social Darwinism–no more assistance for the unemployed, etc), intense nationalism, xenophobia, which included racism and anti-gay and anti-Hispanic sentiments. What appears to be fear and paranoia are such but they are also intense commitments to what people mistakenly think is long established immutable American ways. These people fear they are losing their country. The hysteria will not go away as long as there is an African American in the White House and as long as economic insecurity remains. That is why Palin thinks she can win in 2012.

She is not a very smart person but she understand political fundamentalism. Her husband was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, whose founder accidentally blew himself up making a bomb. Moreover, she belonged to three dominionist churches, whose views run down these lines. She knows the phenomenon and sees it spreading.

Sharron Angle was a long-time member of the Constitutionalist Party. She almost became a US Senator.

I have no idea of clever people in the GOP purposely unleashed a monster. I do know that former majority leader Dick Armey and Mrs. Clarence Thomas are behind it and that it is financed by billionaires.

This is a tiger that will not be easily returned to a cage and it will spread as foreclosures continue and jobs do not return.

What I find most troubling is that a major political party would use fringe wingnuts and not back away from some of their positions. Some of them advocated taking up arms against the government. Only two Republican pundits condemned this. Many talk about secession and nullification. No one in the GOP objected. They also used the big lie technique frequently.

The election victories now make all this part of the American political process. It is poison.

Our media rarely corrects the big lies and behaves as though all of the other madness is normal.

]]>By: wizardxhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/the-politics-of-fear/#comment-77404
Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:29:50 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=25661#comment-77404Yes, as Altemeyer clearly points out in The Authoritarians this mindset is not exclusive to the political Right. But the left wing authoritarians are much outnumbered by those from the right. This reminds of the statistics of austistic spectrum conditions where the majority tend to be male but not exclusively so, far fewer women exhibit the symptoms. On the email list (link in the text above) we discuss various aspects of the RWA and how it relates to the political dimension. My own view is that we need to dig a lot deeper into what we really mean by ‘left vs right’, and in there we may find keys which connect with personality dimensions such as the RWA, SDO, and dare I say it even psychopathy.
]]>By: MichaelKennyhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/the-politics-of-fear/#comment-77386
Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:27:14 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=25661#comment-77386Interesting analysis. Of course, not all RWA’s are on the right, or, at least, they don’t think they are! I find myself regularly criticising authors on this and other left-wing sites for exhibiting one or more of the 12 characteristics described by Dr Mcgowan! Sir Alec Douglas-Home once said that the extremes meet around the back. This research tends to confirm that what used to be called “communism” is in fact just one of the many forms of right-wing authoritarianism..
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